I am a U.S. citizen. I am leaving an extremely bad marriage. I have a 2 year old son whom I am leaving with.

I want to move to Ontario. I have a friend who lives in the Province (Canadian Citizen). She has invited me to live with her until I can get work and PR status.

I don't know how I am to go about everything that I need to do.

I have to leave soon...I think I can hold on for another 6 weeks maximum.

I am a trained Police Officer here. I worked as a full-time Police Officer for 2 1/2 years. That was 91-94. Husband wouldn't allow me to work in that field anymore.

Opened my own business (pre-owned car lot). Pretty successful. Am walking away from everything though.

Would like to possibly get on a force in Ontario..but I need PR status to do so. So, I must work doing something in the interim. Thus, I need a work permit(?).

If anyone can help me it would be greatly appreciated.

you can't get a work permit from within Canada. If you can find a job that qualifies under NAFTA or is HRDC exempt you can get a work permit at the border, for any other job you would need to get the job with HRDC approval and apply for the work permit from outside Canada.

If you go to stay with yoru friend you will just be a visitor in Canada and wont be able to work or study or get provincial health care etc. Your visitor status will be for a max of 6 months then you have to either apply for an extension or leave and return again, which can pose problems on re entry if they dont consider you a genuine visitor and they start wonderign how you are supporting yoruself.

to find out about the various classes and how to apply for PR you should read www.cic.gc.ca

If you can take the entrance tests etc for a police force in Ontario and pass and get a guaranteed job offer that would help you get PR as the skilled worker class is done on poin ts (75+ /100) so you get more poitns for the arranged work otherwise its hard to get a lot of points without a masters degree and stuff.

You could apply while in Canada but would still have to apply via Buffalo in the USA. The only way you can apply completey within Canada is if you are being sponsored by a spouse, so unless you intend on marrying your friend in Canada thats out.

You can do the whole PR thing without leaving Canada though presuming you arent interviewed (which would be in the USA) so presuming you can score more than 75 points you should be ok.

It will take much longer than 6 moths though so there will be that barrier to overcome, other than that you should be fine.